The author of the paper analyzes corporate relations in terms of the criminal law protection and the areaof the prohibitions imposed by criminal law. Attention is paid to dynamism of social life and the emergenceof a new type of public relations more than two decades ago, that is a new group of public relationsrequiring a detailed academic understanding. Due to the priority of compensating legislation forcriminal law, normative and doctrinal characteristics of relations formed inside a corporation are given.The author analyzes the views on the definitions of the concept and legal nature of corporate relationsby modern legal academics. The paper notes the lack of unanimity to their understanding. The papergives a variety of views in the modern legal literature on the concept and legal nature of the group ofpublic relations which may be attributed to the following conceptions: 1) theory of unanimous legal relation;2) theory of organizational and property relations; 3) theory of any legal relations between a legalentity and its participant; 4) theory of secondary rights; 5) theory of corporate legal capacity; 6) theoryof absolute relations. The paper notes the legal broadening of the concept of civil law since March 1,2013 at the expense of including corporate relations. The author outlines their legal interpretation asthe relations of participation in corporation and managing it. It argues that despite lawyers specify twosubgroups of corporate relations, relations of participation in a corporation are major and relations ofmanagement are secondary. A special analysis has been made for article two of the Russian FederationCivil Code in terms of including the group of relations to the object of criminal law protection. A conclusionhas been made as to the legality of spreading criminal law means to protect corporate rights andinterests. The paper has been shown the necessity to protect them by criminal law like those of branchmeans of protection. The article specifies various cause and effect relations justifying the relevance toset up practically appropriate prohibitions imposed by criminal law in the area of corporate relations. Thecombination of various social, economic and legal reasons may account for it.